A Study of Dalit Literature, The Literature of Resistance

Abstract

Postcolonialism is not an offshoot or byproduct of colonialism, they are as some critics have argued, two parallel movements that have their own repercussions. (Young 2001, 57) While the former is a referent of the struggles of indigenous peoples living in many parts of the world, (Ivison ,web) the latter manifested itself as a coercive practice when the ambitious policies of the British (the colonialists) began to have a direct or an indirect bearing on the lives of folks living in the remote continents. The dominion over foreign lands presented the British with viable opportunities which resulted in the adoption of unfair means and subjugation of the people, residing in these countries, exhausting all their economic resources. (Said 1978, 89) Postcolonialism, which is normally perceived as a reaction against the strategies adopted by British empire, stirred a feeling of revolt among the colonized, and its antecedents were evident in the crusades which initiated the process of decolonization. As Chatterjee argues, the colonial encounter fundamentally altered indigenous social structures, creating new forms of hierarchical consciousness (Chatterjee, 1993, 15). The very idea of being colonized gave impetus to the liberation movements in different places.